Faith and Redemption
by DubiousHalo
Summary: Several months after the final battle with the First, Faith returns to her hometown of Boston unsure of her place in the world. What she finds is something completely unexpected.


24

Faith and Redemption

The dark haired young woman had just picked up her bags at the luggage carousel at Boston's Logan Airport when someone came up to her. It was an Asian woman in a stylish suit. She looked to be in her late 20's and spoke with a crisp English accent. The accent gave everything away.

"Miss Anderson?" the woman said.

The dark haired woman was taken aback for a second. She had never told anyone her actual last name. She always thought it sounded so boring. Sometimes she had made up distinctive surnames, but usually she just went by her first name.

"Call me Faith."

"Faith my name is Madako Okasawa, but usually everyone just calls me Maddie."

"You're a Watcher aren't you?" Faith said.

This time it was it was the other woman's turn to be taken aback. "Well yes. I suppose it's the accent isn't it?"

"I thought you guys were all dead."

"No, I was not in London when the bomb went off in the Motherhouse. I was in Japan with my sick father."

"Lucky you."

"Not so lucky. He ended up dying."

"I'm sorry about that, but if you'll excuse me I was planning to visit my mother. It's been awhile."

"I will only take a moment of your time, Faith."

"Why should I talk to you at all? You people tried to kill me."

"Can we sit somewhere and talk?"

Faith began to walk past the woman. The Watchers were the last people she needed to deal with right now. Not after she had just been given her life back.

"Faith Anderson," said the woman sounding much more officious. "Date of birth: May 10, 1981. Father: unknown. Mother: Bridget Anderson. She had several arrests for prostitution. Several times you were even placed in foster homes only to eventually be placed back in your mother's care."

Faith turned to face the woman angrily. How dare they do this to her. Her past was hers alone. It didn't belong to anyone else; especially these people who had tried to kill her on more than one occasion. "You have a lot of fucking nerve lady. If this wasn't a public place I would hand your heart to you."

"Please bear with me Faith. I'm sorry but I had to get your attention. I realize you have no reason to ever trust us again."

"No reason to ever trust you again?" Faith repeated in a mock English accent. "It would almost be worth getting put in the joint again just to tear your tongue out."

"I only ask ten minutes of your time."

"Fine," Faith said.

The two of them sat in the airport lounge. A wandering guard felt obliged to search the bag that Faith had been forced to bring in with them. After that interruption the Watcher continued. "You were called right before your 17th birthday. Your watcher was murdered soon after. You fled to Sunnydale to the other slayer, Buffy Summers. There your problems began."

"Is this history lesson going anywhere?" Faith said.

"It's part of the reason the Watchers Council treated you so shamefully I'm afraid."

"You guys kidnapped me," Faith said. She remembered that night. Angel had kidnapped her to try and force her to face her demons. It was actually working too. Then the Watchers came in and took her. All on the orders of Wesley Wyndam-Price, her prick of a Watcher. Faith never forgot that. Any trust she was willing to give was destroyed by that betrayal.

"People seem to have a habit of letting you down your whole life," the young Asian said sipping her vodka cran.

"Some people have tried to help."

"That would be Angel wouldn't it? Ironic after you were hired to kill him."

"Not everyone is like me I guess."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Faith. You're more special than you realize. I've read up on you."

"You have a great way of speaking the obvious there Maddie."

"You were chosen as a slayer for a reason, Faith. You are not an evil person. It is your destiny to fight evil."

"Yeah me and about a couple hundred other girls now."

Maddie continued as though there had been no interruption. " You were of the original slayer line. Yours is a special power. I think you have incredible potential."

"Preach on sister."

"The bottom line is this. I still have in my posession almost all the resources of the old Watchers Council along with their wealth. My father left me a sizeable fortune when he died. I believe that the two of us can completely remake the Watcher/ Slayer relationship. The potential is there where we can do an incredible amount of good without the politics and ancient rituals that marred the old Council. Here is my card. Please do call me."

"And what if I don't? If you've read up on me you should know I'm an escaped fugitive. Is this where you blackmail me into helping or you send me back to California?"

"Faith you have got to learn to trust people," Maddie said with a smile. "Please think over what I've said. I hope we can work together." And with that she was gone.

Faith stood high atop a hill in the Blue Hills Reservation south of Boston. It was Christmas Eve and a typical New England Nor'easter was dropping copious amounts of snow across the deserted woods. This was why she had come here, to be alone, because she knew only she was crazy enough to come out here in a storm like this. Living in Southern California for a time she had almost forgotten how beautiful snow could be.

Faith looked down the hill, which was now blanketed in white. It was too beautiful for words, or at least it was more beautiful than her words could ever describe it. She had been here before. On a clear day from the point where she was standing you could see the buildings of downtown Boston in the far distance. She had come here often, before she had been called. Before she became the Slayer.

Faith walked some more hearing the snow crunch under her feet. It was hard to tell now but near here was where she had lost her virginity. She had been fourteen and her first lover was the son of a local preacher, just like in the Dusty Springfield song. At one time she had been naïve to think that he actually loved her. She remembered trying to call him only to get the brush off from him. She had chalked it up to human nature. Just another person who had let her down. Just like everyone else.

Faith sat down under a huge oak, wrapping her long leather coat around her to protect her from the snow. This was freedom, she thought. The small things like this. You forgot how much you missed them when you have your freedom taken away from you. Not that she hadn't deserved it. If they knew everything she had done Faith would still be in prison and perhaps deservedly so.

Faith had given herself up for the death of Allen Finch, the Deputy Mayor of Sunnydale. She remembered every detail of the fight. She and Buffy fighting the vamps, Faith running toward Finch with a stake thinking him nothing more than another one, Buffy screaming "NO!" and then the deed, Faith plunging the stake right into his heart. She saw him die bewildered and frightened looking at her as if she could undo what she had done. Then she saw the blood. His blood was on her hands.

Of course there was more blood on her hands since. Killing Finch may have been an accident, but the murder of Lester Worth was completely pre-meditated. He was a vulcanologist who had discovered the skeleton of what he thought was a new dinosaur inside a volcano. It was actually the demon that the Mayor wanted to transform himself into. The Mayor knew if word of that monster got out a way to defeat it could be found. Faith only learned about all that later. At the time she was told to simply kill the Professor. Faith didn't even ask why. She gladly stabbed the old man in the stomach. It took four thrusts in his gut to do the job. It was his agonized and uncomprehending face she saw most nights. At the time it had meant absolutely nothing to her.

Faith had pleaded guilty to murder and abuse of a corpse since she tried to sink Finch into the ocean. But of course her demons always had a way of floating back to the surface. She was sentenced to twenty years. In prison Faith had to see a shrink. "Why did you kill Mr. Finch?" she had asked.

"Well doc you see I'm what you call a Slayer. I was called to kill vampires and demons. I have skills for the job, kinda like a superhero."

"Is that why you stabbed Mr. Finch in the heart with a wooden stake? Because you thought he was a vampire?"

"Pretty much. I guess he wasn't, was he?"

"What If I told you that I believe this belief of yours is tied to your childhood? I know you did not have a pleasant home environment as a child."

That was an understatement. Faith's mother was a part time prostitute and a full time alcoholic. Most of the time her mother would shoo her out the door when her clients came but sometimes she was too drunk to care. On numerous occasions she bore witness to her mother degrading herself to support her. It made Faith feel worthless and unwanted. Then there were the times when the johns even offered her mother more money for some time alone with Faith.

The shrink continued her hypothesis. "I believe you created this vampire slayer persona because of the powerlessness you felt as a child. It's actually a case of a split personality. A child creates another persona to protect herself from the helpless situation she finds herself in. You created this Slayer so that you could feel some sense of control over your life. That leads to the next question then, Faith. Why are you here?"

"I killed some people, remember?"

"Any public defender worth their salt should have recognized what this is. This is a cut and dry insanity defense if I ever saw one."

Faith had been insulted by the mere mention. "I'm not crazy. For once I just want to take responsibility for what I've done."

"But you're not, Faith. Locking yourself up in here is only keeping you from confronting your demons."

Faith didn't know what to do. In a way the shrink was right. Faith had felt absolutely powerless as a child. When she became the slayer suddenly it all changed. Now she suddenly had the power to victimize people before they had a chance to victimize her. How screwed up was that?

"Faith, If I put in a request to transfer you to a mental health facility would you cooperate. It may actually get you out of here sooner if the state sees that you actually want to rehabilitate yourself."

And so it went. For a year and a half Faith talked to the shrink. She was careful to leave out the actual vampire slaying stories. Those that were unavoidable the shrink just put down to Faith's past psychosis anyway. Confronting what happened to her as a kid was uncomfortable but Faith soon felt like a burden was lifted. It felt good to talk to someone. It was just too bad she couldn't talk about everything. Like what had happened to her first watcher.

Faith was called just before she turned 17. On one of the few days when she wasn't cutting school she was suddenly confronted by a woman outside the schoolyard. She was tall, blond, and elegant looking. She resembled the actress Catherine Deneurve. In a very posh English accent she explained to Faith her destiny. She was the chosen one. She alone could save the world from the vampires and demons. Even though she knew it all sounded insane Faith knew in her gut that everything the woman was telling her was true. It was an epiphany. Faith finally felt like her rotten horrible life had some kind of purpose.

Her watcher's name was Penelope Ayresworth, or just Penny for short. She told how she represented a group called the Watchers that trained the Slayer in her duties. To say that was a shock would have been an understatement. Faith felt like a princess in a fairy tale. She was actually wanted by someone for something other than a cheap lay. She was needed for something worthwhile, something that was noble.

Ironically the happiest moment of her life up to that point was then spoiled by one of the worst. That was the last day she had ever seen her mother. Faith went home after that initial meeting with Penny to find her mother semi-conscious on the couch, a bottle of cheap booze had tipped. Its leaking contents on top of the cartons of fast food lying around gave off the stench of rot. A cockroach crawled into one of the boxes.

This was a scene Faith had walked into time and time again. She was by now used to it, but today was different. Today she suddenly decided she wasn't going to take this anymore. She didn't have to. Faith roused her mother from her stupor.

"What the hell?" her mother snapped. "Can't you see I was trying to sleep?"

"Yeah it's five o'clock, time to meet your customers."

"What the hell did you just say to me?"

"C'mon Mom, you have to look your best for those pieces of trash who screw you for pocket change, or do you just charge them bottles of vodka now?"

"You watch your mouth young lady."

"Or you'll do what, puke on my shoes? Look at you. I mean have you ever looked at yourself. Do you have any shame? Stupid question I guess."

"I don't have to take that kind of shit from you Faith. You forget whose roof you're living under."

"Well that can change."

"You wouldn't dare leave. Where would you go?"

"I don't know, maybe I'll just become a whore like you. Like mother like daughter you know?"

That was when the slap came. It had happened before whenever Faith had criticized her mother and Faith had always backed down. Faith decided at that moment she didn't have to take anyone's crap ever again.

"How dare you judge me!" her mother screamed. Faith could smell the foul alcohol and cigarettes in her breath. "What about all those boys you screw around with? You think I don't know about that!"

"Well at least they show me some affection, even if it's for a short time. That's more than I've ever gotten from you."

"This is the thanks I get," her mother said. "Do you know what I've had to do to support you?"

"Yeah I do know. I saw it every fucking day of my life. Do you know how unwanted it made me feel? How worthless? That my mother had to whore herself out to support me? You never wanted me Mom, just admit it."

"That's not true."

"Don't lie to me!" Faith screamed. "If you had wanted me you wouldn't have just stood by for all those years while your fucking johns came onto me. Do you even remember that? You sold me out. Literally."

Her mother started crying. Sometimes she would if she felt guilty enough and like the slaps it always made Faith back down from confrontation. "Faith I'm so sorry," her mother said, her voice drowning in her sobs.

"You should be happy, Mom. I'm leaving. You'll never have to worry about me again." And with that Faith left her mother, but not before adding a parting shot she would now always regret. "You're dead to me."

Back on the snowy hilltop Faith thought of her now. This time she had sworn that everything would be different. They would have a real mother-daughter relationship, just like Buffy had with her mom. Perhaps it was just a pipe dream but it was what lured Faith back to Boston. Faith even thought that coming home for Christmas would somehow make everything better.

Faith had learned her mother had died on New Years Eve 1999 from acute blood alcohol poisoning. Maybe her mother had decided to celebrate the new millennium by going on the bender to end all benders, or maybe she missed her daughter. Faith would never know either way. At that time Faith was in a coma because of her own actions. For all her hopes of having some kind of reconciliation, her mother had been dead for years. She would never get a chance to see her again, or to try and make things right. Faith felt sick from the news. She wanted to make herself suffer at first. She wanted to find the nearest dive bar she could and drink herself into oblivion as well. Instead she chose to get as far away from people as possible and so she sat under a tree in a raging snowstorm totally alone. But wasn't she always alone?

After that argument with her mother Faith learned to her joy that Penny would put her up, and put her up in style to boot. Penny lived in a luxury high-rise condo in Back Bay. She said the Watchers paid for everything. It had three large bedrooms, one of which was converted into a gym so that Faith could train. Soon they were patrolling the rough neighborhoods of Boston. Faith was actually fighting vampires. She had no idea that she was taking out all her anger and frustration out on them. She only knew that in the short time she was with Penny she was the happiest she had ever been. Penny quickly had become the kind of parent Faith always wished she had.

That changed in only three months. Faith came home from patrolling to find a note taped to Penny's door. It said simply that Penny had been taken and that Faith was to come to a warehouse in Roxbury. Faith did as she was told. Gaining entry was easy as though who ever had Penny considered Faith no threat. Well they would soon learn differently. What she saw she would take with her to her grave.

Some monster that should only exist in nightmares was standing over Penny's blood drenched corpse. He was huge with cloven hands and feet. As soon as he saw Faith he smiled. He was a vampire, but like none she had ever faced. "Faith, so good of you to come. I'm Kakistos."

Faith stared past him at Penny's ravaged body. Her internal organs were laying around the body like grisly knickknacks. Then Faith noticed that Kakistos was holding Penny's head in his claw. "I'm sorry," he said. "You never got a chance to say goodbye did you? Here you go." He then tossed the head at Faith who instinctively raised her hands to defend herself. The head bounced off her arms and landed at Faith's feet. Penny's dead eyes glanced up at her. Faith backed herself into a wall.

"No goodbyes then?" Kakistos said. "Oh well, the youth today. I am going to kill you slayer. It's going to make what I did to your watcher seem civilized. Then I'm going to kill the other slayer."

"Other slayer?" Faith whispered. She stared at Kakistos' hideous smile. "I'm the only slayer."

"She didn't tell you? You were a mistake Faith."

"No, I'm the chosen one," Faith said. She was desperately trying not to go into shock. Her eyes kept glancing down to Penny's face, her dead eyes staring up at her. She wanted to kill this monster for what he had done to Penny but she found she was too terrified to even move.

"You were a mistake, Faith. You should never have been called. You should have lived your life in obscurity. Buffy Summers is the slayer, not you. You are nothing."

Kakistos then advanced on her. But he was too big and slow. Faith acted on pure instinct and easily dodged his advance. She pulled out the six-inch knife she had carried for her own protection. Without even thinking she slashed out at the monster. She sliced his right eye. He howled in pain and stepped back. Faith knew she could press the attack now but she still hesitated. She couldn't get the picture of Penny out of her head. At that moment Kakistos recovered and advanced on her again. Faith now knew he would kill her if she fought. So she ran. To her shame Faith ran out the door as fast as she could and tried never to look back, knowing that Kakistos would be there.

Faith crossed the country making money however she could. Invariably that meant entering amateur nights in strip clubs. During her flight she learned that there was a mystical convergence of energy in California that evil was drawn to. Faith knew that's where she could find this Buffy Summers.

Shivering on top of the hill now Faith thought bitterly about how she had betrayed Buffy's friendship in the worst possible way. It was something she was too ashamed to dwell on. Buffy offered her something, a sense of belonging and Faith chose not to belong. Maybe she could chalk it up to guilt over murdering Finch and Worth but she knew it was more than that. It was the power. It was the best kind of drug. She could victimize people before they ever got a chance to do it to her. She had even tried to get Buffy to walk on the wild side with her, always furious that she wouldn't, that she chose the path of the righteous. It made Faith all the more angry that she could never measure up to her. It was an easy step after that to join forces with the Mayor. With him she could have the ultimate power. She wondered if Penny had lived would she have chosen the same path? To her shame Faith knew she probably would.

Faith remembered how she had gone after Buffy's beloved Angel. First she had tortured his associate, Wesley, to draw him out. At that point she didn't even know who she was anymore. She thought it would be the supreme payback to torture him after what he done to her, but Faith found absolutely no joy in the pain she caused him. It seemed as though she were outside herself looking in. When Angel finally showed she fought him, hitting him furiously. She knew it was a half-assed attempt to get him to kill her but he wouldn't fight back. The anger and self-loathing finally came spilling out of her. Faith fell to her knees in front of him, sobbing for the first time in her life. She had never cried before, not even for Penny. She begged Angel to kill her. Of course he didn't.

It was ironic that the only person who never gave up on her in the end was a vampire. Angel always knew she coud be redeemed. That's why she gave herself up, hoping she could find redemption somehow, but knowing she probably wouldn't.

In the prison hospital Faith passed the long hours by finally reading the books she should have read if she had bothered going to school. She was embarrassed that she knew so little about the world and truly wanted to know more. The sessions with the shrink continued also. Her childhood traumas were brought back and her shrink thought Faith had reached some kind of inner peace. Yeah, right, whatever. She went back into the general population, the other prisoners and even the guards stayed away from her. She counted the years til her parole hearing and hoped she could find some kind of peace with herself. But then something weird happened.

The last person she ever expected to visit her came to the prison. It was none other than Wesley Windham-Pryce, except now he looked nothing like the effeminate asswipe she had known when he tried to be her Watcher. He seemed self-assured and Faith had to admit, kind of attractive. When he told her Angel was in trouble she didn't hesitate for a moment. She ecaped from prison right then and there. It was the sign she had been waiting for.

After that everything happened so quickly. She was reunited with Angel, she made amends to Wes, and then headed off to Sunnydale for that thing she had sworn she would never do, reunite with Buffy.

The reunion with Buffy turned out to be anti-climatic as far as their friendship was concerned. Relations remained frosty between them, but at least they were able to fight on the same side again.

But then the way everything turned out in the end she wasn't sure she liked. A spell was cast that made all potential slayers on the planet acutal slayers. Faith didn't know how to react to that. She had always felt being a slayer made her special. Now she was just one of many. Nothing special about Faith Anderson amymore.

She had tried to fight the good fight afterward. She went to Cleveland for a while with its second hellmouth. But so many slayers came along she felt unnecessary, and quite frankly, just another one of the gang. So eventually she made her way back to her hometown of Boston. Maybe you can never go home again, but Faith decided she wanted to try. She even had high hopes of being reunited with her mother, helping her, and finally being a daughter.

So that brings me to the top of a hill beginning to freeze my ass off, she thought. Faith heard a sound behind her. Quickly she pulled out a sharp wooden stake from under her coat and spun around. It was a squirrel. He was digging through the snow trying to find whatever it is that squirrels look for. "Shouldn't you be hibernating or something?" Faith said annoyed that she could get so spooked so easy.

Suddenly Faith felt it was not the smartest thing to have come here. She felt very vulnerable. It was a feeling that had come upon her very quickly, a feeling she hadn't experienced since she had last fought a vampire.

"You can come out now!" Faith called out into the wind.

There were three of them all wearing their game faces. What they were doing in the middle of the woods during a snowstorm she had no idea. She decided they probably wouldn't tell her anyway.

"Look what we got here? You lost little girl?"

"Ah, the lame posing," Faith said. " Probably followed next by some even lamer threats. Anytime you're ready guys."

The vampires lost all pretense in taunting her. They advanced trying to encircle her. Faith dodged the trap and somersaulted out into the open. She kicked the vampire closest to her and he slid on the snow into his companion. Faith lunged forward and plunged the stake into its heart. The familiar destruction occurred as the vampire exploded into a cloud of dust.

The vamp that had been knocked down suddenly seemed frightened. "Hey no one said that was part of the deal."

"What are you talking about?"

The remaining vampire evidently thought this was a good time to attack. It was more than pathetic. Faith staked him without even looking. That got the vamp on the ground even more scared. "Oh man this cannot be happening," he whimpered.

"I suggest you start talking now, or you're going to be fertilizing the trees. What deal were you talking about?"

"Man I thought the slayer was in California. That's why I stayed east. No one said you were the slayer."

Faith punched the vampire in the mouth. "Who? Who told you to kill me?"

"We weren't supposed to kill you," the vampire whimpered. "We were just supposed to scare you. That's what the girl said."

"What girl?" Faith demanded.

"Some Asian chick. She told us to follow you and then scare you in some private place. I didn't know you were coming up here. It took a hell of a time to get here in this snow."

"You've been following me?" Faith said, her hands tightly gripped around the vamp's throat.

"She paid us 500 each. She didn't say anything else." Then the vampire started whimpering some more. "So you're not going to kill me now?"

"I'm the slayer. It's what I do." And with that Faith dusted the vampire one quarter of a second later. But Faith knew what he said was wrong. She wasn't _the _slayer, she was just a slayer. One of many.

When she got back to the city Faith called the number on the card Maddie had given her. Faith was staying at a hotel off the interstate in the suburb of Quincy. As far as motels went it was decent. She had stayed in far worse. It didn't take Maddie long at all to come knocking on the door.

Faith greeted the watcher with a punch to the nose. Before she could pull the Asian inside to deliver a beating the girl removed Faith's hand, twisting it so that she couldn't throw another punch. "You fucking bitch!" Faith said. "You tried to kill me."

"I did no such thing. We can discuss this rationally," said Maddie.

With her free hand Faith punched the Asian woman in the mouth. Maddie threw her weight forward pushing Faith off balance. They both spilled into the motel room. With a kick Maddie shut the door. "If you would just let me explain," she said calmly. It only made Faith angrier. She lunged at the young Watcher again, but she found that Maddie matched her blow for blow. Just her luck to try and beat the crap out of a karate expert.

"Are you quite finished now?" said Maddie. "I realize you are upset."

"Upset!" Faith yelled. "You fucking manipulative prick! You sicced three vamps on me! And you come in here like you did nothing wrong. You Watchers are all alike! You talk about how you've changed, but in the end we're nothing but pawns, disposable pawns for you to use as you like." And with that Faith walked past the Watcher, preparing to leave the Watchers and her Slayer past behind her for good.

"So that's it, Faith? You just walk away? And where would you go? Perhaps become a stripper again?" Faith turned and faced her, her fury beginning to grow again. "You can't walk away from your destiny. You are the Slayer, the chosen one."

"No. Buffy was the chosen one. I was a mistake."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Faith. Everyone can see the potential in you. We've monitored you since you escaped from prison. You are a natural leader. What I did, I did as a test. I admit it was probably foolish but I had to make sure your primal instinct was still intact."

"That primal instinct has got a lot of innocent people hurt."

"Those days are gone."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Do you remember your prison psychiatrist?"

Faith nodded, the realization coming on her. It was like getting run over by your destiny. There seemed no way to avoid it.

"The things you told her in therapy she began to check out. She found there actually is a Buffy Summers. Then she discovered how Mayor Richard Wilkens died under, shall we say, mysterious circumstances when Sunnydale High School exploded. She found that an arson team never investigated the ruins of the school. She heard tales of a giant snake which were written off as mass hysteria. She began to realize maybe you were actually telling the truth about everything."

"Of course I was telling the truth but so what? It's not like we can broadcast that truth to the world. No one wants to hear it."

"I don't have the final psychiatric report in front of me," said Maddie but paraphrasing it says something like "Faith has come a long way in confronting the demons of her past. Given time she may actually be one of the greatest slayers in history for she posesses the drive and the knowledge to do what is right."

Faith sat on the bed, completely drained. All her life she had felt like someone's victim, that she had no control of what happened to her. Being a Slayer had changed all that. She didn't have to be the victim anymore. In fact she could be the victimizer if she chose. Now she felt like the scared, helpless girl living in her mother's house. "I can't do this," she said softly.

"I know you feel that way now and it's perfectly understandable," Maddie said in her ever unpurterbable tone.

"It's not that. It's this whole thing. I am not going to play anyone elses game. If we're going to work together we have to be equal partners."

Before she Maddie could respond Faith remembered something from the past. That crack about becoming a stripper again made Faith think back to Sunnydale when she and Buffy were still friends. She had made Buffy go out on the town with her. It was Faith's idea to enter an amateur night at some strip club. Buffy immediately balked at the idea.

"C'mon B, it'll be fun," Faith said with her usual confidence regarding things fun.

"Taking my clothes off in front of screaming, drunken louts. Not seeing the fun there," said Buffy.

"But there's more to it than that. You see I have this theory that stripping is actually the highest form of feminism."

"Oh this I gotta hear," Buffy said with that cute little half smile she used to do.

"Men are actually paying money for our company. We have complete power over them. There's nothing like it. Not even slaying is like it, because the bond the stripper has is all in the head."

"Isn't just a bunch of drunk, horny guys who think they might get lucky?"

"Sure. I mean they know they don't have a shot in hell of getting us but they continue to pay money for our company to play out the fantasy."

"Still it's not my kind of thing," Buffy said in that flat tone that Faith knew meant she wanted her to drop the whole thing, but of course Faith wouldn't.

"C'mon with our moves we are guaranteed to win. Are you afraid they might like me more?"

Then Buffy actually seemed embarrassed. She actually got red and turned away. "You would win, I know."

"What do you mean? You've got the whole sweet, innocent look going for you. Plus you're a blond. Guys love blonds."

"I'm not exactly Pamela Anderson in the boob department," said Buffy.

Faith suddenly realized something then. She decided to voice her theory. " Well first off, Pam Anderson's boobs are fake anyway. Secondly I have to ask, do you think you're pretty?"

"What kind of question is that?" Buffy said.

"Do you feel you are an attractive girl?" Faith repeated.

"I never thought about it."

"You had to think about it. Every girl does. Even mousy Willow thinks about it."

"I'm okay I guess," Buffy said quietly. "Look, can we change the subject?"

Of course not. Once she had hold of something Faith could never let go. "I think you know you're pretty hot, B. Look at the way you dress. You want to be noticed. Kind of like me. But of course I know I'm hot."

"And so modest too."

"Modesty is for girls like Willow. We're something special, B. We both know it."

"So why do we have to prove that by taking our clothes off in front of strangers?"

"Jeez girl, lighten up. I just thought it would be fun, that's all."

"You would win anyway," Buffy suddenly said.

And at that moment Faith thought Buffy was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. Yes, Buffy might have known she was cute but she never would allow it to take over her like it did for girls like Cordelia. At that moment Faith wanted to say something that would cement their friendship forever, but she didn't want to make Buffy feel awkward. Instead she just said, "damn right I would have."

Faith was back in the motel room now. She knew her friendship with Buffy was lost forever because of her past actions and that would always be a source of pain for her. But maybe she could find a purpose after all. It's true she wasn't unique anymore but that didn't mean she couldn't make a diference.

"All right Maddie here are my terms," she suddenly said. "I believe we can work together but if you ever pull shit on me like you did today not only will our partnership be ended I will also become very upset with you."

"Perfectly understandable," said Maddie. "I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"Maybe later," said Faith. "But for now. You said you're rich right?"

"Yes," said Maddie.

"I'm starving. Take me out to dinner."


End file.
